No need to spill the tea as popular tea retailer opens store in Oshawa after six-year absence

After a six-year absence a popular tea franchise has returned to the Oshawa Centre.

The Oshawa location was one of 82 DavidsTea stores in Canada and all 42 in the U.S. that closed in the summer of 2020 because of financial struggles during the early days of the pandemic, with the Montreal-based company choosing to focus on wholesale sales and their e-commerce business.

Bricks-and-mortar locations have now returned for DavidsTea, with the Oshawa Centre location, which celebrated its grand opening June 6, joining stores at the Eaton Centre and Sherway Gardens in Toronto, Lime Ridge Mall in Hamilton, Rideau Centre in Ottawa and Masonville Place in London, with a location set to open at Mississauga’s Square One later this year.

The Oshawa opening is in direct response to local demand, said DavidsTea CEO Sarah Segal.

“There’s nothing like the joy of connecting with our community in person, bringing personalized recommendations and in-store tastings, and seeing tea bring people together,” she said. “Oshawa asked us to come back, and we’re proud to bring the full DavidsTea experience home to Durham.”

The new location in the Oshawa mall will feature the company’s full assortment of loose-leaf teas, teaware and seasonal collections and will bring a new, full Tea Bar offering as well.

DavidsTea, who started with a single store on Queen Street in Toronto in 2008, has crafted thousands of signature blends and served millions of tea lovers in the years since.

The company sources from tea gardens across the world, blending with premium ingredients and prioritizing organic and natural as much as possible.

The tea retailer pursues plans to bringing its network to 25 locations in Canada by year-end. The Oshawa opening follows several years of transformation for the company, which has rebuilt its business around a combination of retail stores, e-commerce and wholesale distribution.

The restructuring plan seems to be working, with the company enjoying sales of 13 million in the first quarter, with $11.7 of that from Canadian operations, including $5.2 million from the re-opened bricks-and-mortar stores.

Sales from the wholesale channel of $1.8 million and online sales of $6 million round out the balance sheet.

The company’s wholesale customers include more than 4,000 grocery stores and pharmacies and nearly 2,500 convenience stores in Canada and the U.S.